Muldoon Defends Pic Switch, Eastern Wyoming Rep Sends Message

Mayor Pete Muldoon defended changing the portraits for President Donald Trump, and Vice President Mike Pence to one of Chief Washakie, the leader of the Shoshone Tribe in the 19^th century.

Muldoon said the change would keep the Town Council away from partisan politics and that he would have made the same choice with any president.
In a written statement over the weekend in which he said, “If Barack Obama was still president, I would make the same decision. There was a picture of Obama at Town Hall, and it was put up before I was elected mayor. I don’t believe it should have been displayed either. So I’ll be replacing presidential portraits with an organizational chart of federal, state and local government, which will make clear that the citizens, through Congress, are sovereign and create policies which the Supreme Court ensures are consistent with our Constitution and are subsequently executed by the president.”

 
While the change will likely please many in the community, it, along with the town’s recent  adoption of a resolution to support the Paris Climate agreement, got the goat of another Wyoming politico.
Tyler Lindholm is a Wyoming State House Representative from Sundance who serves constituents in District 1 and he took to social media over the weekend to take a jab or two at Jackson elected officials. Lindholm posted a video on Facebook.
In the post, Lindholm said, “Did you see that the Mayor of Jackson proclaimed the town is going to adopt the Paris Climate Accord and then ripped down the photo of the President of the United States? I’ve got some advice for you, Mr. Mayor. Listen up…” followed by a three and half-minute video.
 

Lindholm also asked, “Have they (Jackson Town Council) passed a resolution rejecting any and all Federal Coal lease money from the State for their new school? Are they prepared to reject any local funding from the State that is tainted by Coal? They should be, otherwise their words are just that; words. Or was this just a simple publicity stunt to garner attention?”

Wyoming’s mineral industry has been troubled and monies paid to the State of Wyoming have dropped significantly and caused the state legislature, as well as towns and counties to tighten their budgets, very tightly in some cases.
The town’s relationship with the rest of the state has been difficult at times and some commenters on the post wondered if if the photo swap might antagonize representatives from other, energy-producing parts of Wyoming.
Lindholm’s video has been viewed over 60000 times since it went up on Saturday evening.
Photos:Wikipedia, whitehouse.gov, Facebook